Top cop Bill Fordy says Surrey residents will help police "make it a very daunting task for the Hells Angels, or any other organized crime group, to flourish...

The takedown of high-ranking Hells Angels members in a raid at a Kelowna clubhouse is a stark reminder that the Central Okanagan is not immune to the gang activity that has plagued the Lower Mainland.

Kelowna RCMP Supt. Bill McKinnon said his city has been attracting a growing number of gangs, including the Independent Soldiers and Throttle Lockers, since the Hells Angels first set up shop there in 2003.

“(Gang activity) has grown significantly in the last 10 years,” McKinnon said. “It started out initially there was none. Then the Hells Angels moved in and built their clubhouse here and it’s taken off.”

The gang activity is indicative of the burgeoning growth in the Central Okanagan in the past decade, McKinnon said. Kelowna, the fourth-fastest growing city in Canada, now has 130,000 residents, while the population of the entire regional district, stretching from Peachland to Lake Country, is about 180,000.

The Coquihalla Highway, along with Kelowna’s position between Vancouver, Alberta and the U.S. border, have also likely contributed to the city’s popularity as a hub for biker gangs.

“What we’re dealing with here is a previous misconception that the gang problem was limited to an area,” said RCMP Sgt. Duncan Pound. “Organized crime groups don’t respect the borders; they’re looking to expand their business and their profits.”

Last weekend’s raid at the Kelowna Hells Angels clubhouse, police say, highlights the fact that organized criminals are expanding their territory. Mounties on Saturday kicked in the front door of the group’s Kelowna clubhouse, a $503,000 two-storey stucco and brick home located in an older residential neighbourhood close to the downtown core.

The home, purchased by Richard Goldammer and Hans Kurth for $231,000 in 2000, according to B.C. property records, was one of five locations searched by the RCMP as part of a 21-month drug trafficking investigation that involved law enforcement officials from the Okanagan to Panama.

Eight people, including full-patch Hells Angels David Giles, 52, and Brian Oldham, 45, were charged for their alleged role in a scheme to grow marijuana to fund the importation of 500 kilograms of cocaine from South America. All accused are slated to appear in B.C. Supreme Court next Wednesday.

“The Coquihalla opened up this area of the province. It wasn’t easy to get to (before) but now you can be in Surrey in three hours,” McKinnon said. “If you’re not involved in the drug scene, I think you can go about your business and not know they exist ... (but) if you go in a nightclub in this community you’re going to see gang members.

“A real eye-opener for an awful lot of people was the gangland murder of (Jonathan) Bacon last year. The fact that could happen in daylight in our community was a real shocker to a lot of people.”

Bacon, a 30-year-old Red Scorpion, died outside the Delta Grand hotel in a hail of bullets fired at a Porsche Cayenne in which he and other gangsters were travelling. A Hells Angel and an Independent Soldier were also wounded in that attack.

Also last year, seven Okanagan men, including two full-patch Hells Angels, were charged in the June beating death of Kelowna resident Dain Phillips. The case was believed to be the first in the 28-year-history of the Hells Angels in B.C. where a club member was charged with murder.

In 2010, the RCMP’s Federal Drug Enforcement Section also announced charges against Mexican nationals in two separate cocaine-smuggling operations, including one involving Kelowna residents.

A 16-member Gang Task Force based in Kelowna, which tackles the issue of gang activity, declined to comment on the city’s organized crime situation.

But Kelowna Mayor Walter Gray downplayed the issue. “I would question if there’s more gang activity in Kelowna or if there’s more gang activity everywhere,” he said.

Pound said while some gangs such as the Hells Angels — and puppet clubs such as the Throttle Lockers and the King Pin Crew — have a foothold in Kelowna, others use the city as a recreation destination or a meeting place.

Of those arrested following the raid last weekend, for instance, Giles was the only one confirmed to own property in Kelowna, a $621,000 home in Lakeview Heights that he bought for $450,000 in 2004, according to property records. The other accused live across B.C., in homes stretching from Delta to Osoyoos and Castlegar.

Gray noted Kelowna city officials are also becoming more aggressive in the battle against gangs. The police budget for the 154-member force has doubled in the past six years, he said, from $11 million to $22 million this year. Police have also moved toward a crime-reduction strategy, aimed at getting the “big fish” out of the game.

This means criminals will no longer be invisible in his city. “We want to be known as an extremely safe community,” Gray said. “Council is very committed to supplying the resources required to reduce the rate of all crime.”

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